Professional Documents
Culture Documents
We ground our suggestions in a key understanding about history instruction sometimes skipped
by literacy coaches: in order for students to
engage with texts in sophisticated ways, they
This new emphasis on text complexity has sent must see these texts as evidence. That is, students
English Language Arts (ELA) teachers across who are asked to simply pull historical facts
the country scrambling to find informational from a primary source are no better prepared
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the specific readers (e.g., their motivation, experience, etc.) and the purpose and complexity of the
questions or task assigned with the reading. In
other words, the interaction between the reader
and the text plays a critical role in defining text
complexity.
A thorny instructional dilemma emerges from
this definition: on the one hand, students should
engage with complex texts that broaden their linguistic repertoire; on the other hand, they should
engage with texts in ways that are rigorous and
intellectually meaningful. If they devote all their
mental resources to assembling a basic understanding of the propositions in the text (what van
Dijk and Kintsch, 1983, call a textbase model),
they have few resources remaining to interpret
or analyze what the author is actually saying and
how it relates to what they already know (what
the same researchers call a situation model).
Moreover, for many students, no amount of effort could help them decipher Polks message
in Figure 1. To engage with Polks message,
students would have to appreciate the context for
the speech namely, the seething tensions between the U.S. and Mexico in the wake of Texas
annexation. The documents complexity lies in
how Polk blames Mexico for the outbreak of
hostilities, despite clear indications in the speech
itself of American aggression. The instructional
challenge, then, is to simplify the document
sufficiently to allow students to engage with the
true nature of its complexity: a broader historical
context without which the documents meaning
remains opaque. We argue that key instructional
moves can resolve this dilemma and transform
complex texts into curriculum that can be used
with struggling readers.
Pose a Central Question
The first step in designing history instruction
around complex texts is to give students an
intellectually stimulating purpose for reading.
A central historical question focuses students
attention and transforms the act of reading into
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James K. Polk, President of the United States at Washington, D.C., to the Congress of the United
States, in a special message calling for a declaration of war against Mexico.
Washington, May 11, 1846.
To the Senate and the House of Representatives:
The strong desire to establish peace with Mexico on liberal and honorable terms, and the readiness of this
Government to regulate and adjust our boundary and other causes of difference with that power on such
fair and equitable principles as would lead to permanent relations of the most friendly nature, induced me
in September last to seek the reopening of diplomatic relations between the two countries. . . . An envoy of
the United States repaired to Mexico with full powers to adjust every existing difference. . . .The Mexican
Government not only refused to receive him or listen to his propositions, but after a long-continued series of
menaces have at last invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil. . .
In my message at the commencement of the present session I informed you that upon the earnest appeal both
of the Congress and convention of Texas I had ordered an efficient military force to take a position between the Nueces and Del Norte. This had become necessary to meet a threatened invasion of Texas by the
Mexican forces, for which extensive military preparations had been made. The invasion was threatened solely
because Texas had determined, in accordance with a solemn resolution of the Congress of the United States,
to annex herself to our Union, and under these circumstances it was plainly our duty to extend our protection
over her citizens and soil.
This force was concentrated at Corpus Christi, and remained there until after I had received such information
from Mexico as rendered it probable, if not certain, that the Mexican Government would refuse to receive our
envoy.
Meantime Texas, by the final act of our Congress, had become an integral part of our Union. The Congress of
Texas, by its act of December 19, 1836, had declared the Rio del Norte to be the boundary of that Republic.
Its jurisdiction had been extended and exercised beyond the Nueces. The country between that river and the
Del Norte had been represented in the Congress and in the convention of Texas. . .
The movement of the troops to the Del Norte was made by the commanding general under positive instructions to abstain from all aggressive acts toward Mexico or Mexican citizens and to regard the relations
between that Republic and the United States as peaceful unless she should declare war or commit acts of
hostility indicative of a state of war.
The Mexican forces at Matamoras assumed a belligerent attitude. . . But no open act of hostility was committed until the 24th of April. On that day General Arista, who had succeeded to the command of the Mexican
forces, communicated to General Taylor that he considered hostilities commenced and should prosecute
them. A party of dragoons of 63 men and officers were on the same day dispatched from the American camp
up the Rio del Norte, on its left bank, to ascertain whether the Mexican troops had crossed or were preparing
to cross the river, became engaged with a large body of these troops, and after a short affair, in which some
16 were killed and wounded, appear to have been surrounded and compelled to surrender.
We have tried every effort at reconciliation. The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even before the
recent information from the frontier of the Del Norte. But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed
the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.
She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war.
JAMES K. POLK
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Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies,
Our third suggestion providing students with Science, and Technical Subjects. (2010). National
multiple opportunities for practice is the most Governors Association Center for Best Practices
obvious and, simultaneously, the most chal- and Council of Chief State School Officers.
lenging to fulfill. In our San Francisco study,
students in classes with document-based in- Haroutunian-Gordon, S. Learning to Teach
struction outgrew their counterparts in reading Through Discussion: The Art of Turning the Soul.
comprehension in part because they read every New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
day. Reading a single 250-word document will
not make a student a stronger reader, but reading National Institute for Literacy. (2007). What
and interpreting 3-5 documents per week over content-area teachers should know about adothe course of a school year will. When students lescent literacy. Washington, D.C.
read often, their fluency and vocabulary grow,
allowing them to engage with increasingly chal- Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian:
lenging texts.
A document-based history intervention in an
urban high school. Cognition and Instruction,
30(1), 86-112.
Conclusion
Reisman, A. (2012b). The Document-Based
The recent discovery that students struggle to Lesson: Bringing disciplinary inquiry into high
comprehend complex texts did not surprise those school history classrooms with struggling adoof us who have long worked with struggling lescent readers. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
readers. However, increasing the complexity of 44(2), 233-264.
classroom texts without thinking deeply about the
accompanying pedagogy is a surefire recipe for Reisman, A., & Wineburg, S. (2008). Teaching
failure. Like any process of skill development, the skill of contextualizing in history. Social Studreading comprehension is gradual. Our three ies, 99(5), 202-207.
suggestions pose a central question, modify the
document, and provide multiple opportunities for Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and
practice allow students to develop the requisite other unnatural acts: Charting the future of
skills to tackle the increasingly complex texts that teaching the past. Philadelphia, PA: Temple.
they will encounter in their journey to college.
van Dijk, T. A., & Kintsch, W. (1983). StrateReferences
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What the ACT reveals about college readiness Wineburg, S., Martin, D., & Monte-Sano, C.
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Carnegie Council on Advancing Adolescent New York: Teachers College.
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Text Complexity in the History Classroom / Reisman & Wineburg
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